Optical fiber communication systems are extensively used in the telecommunications industry. Communication systems employing optical fibers have termination points where optical fiber cross connections, interconnections and terminations are performed. The termination points are generally located at a customer's premises, remote from a central office.
At each termination point, optical fibers must be separated from outer protective cable components for splicing and termination. Several different types of enclosures or equipment racks for use at the termination points are available to protect optical fibers and fiber optic cables. These include, for example, the enclosures or equipment racks described in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,367 to Czosnowski et al. dated Oct. 4, 1994, U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,459 to Meyerhoefer et al. dated Jun. 2, 1992, U.S. Pat. No. 5,241,617 to Peacock et al. dated Aug. 31, 1993, U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,784 to Debortoli et al dated Nov. 26, 1991, U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,231 to Dewez et al. dated Jan. 5, 1988 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,428 to Shibata dated Feb. 15, 1994.
Fiber optic cables are routed from the enclosure or equipment rack through a building using various types of supports. For example, fiber optic cable raceway systems comprised of U-shaped channel members of various shapes and sizes are available to permit such routing. Straight walled and curved U-shaped channel members may be used to provide support and bend radius control for fiber optic cables as shown in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/425,798, now abandoned, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/768,127, now abandoned, U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,349 to Kutsch et al. dated Aug. 2, 1994, U.S. Pat. No. 5,394,502 to Caron dated Feb. 28, 1995 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,893 to Caveney et al dated Nov. 28, 1996.
Abutting one side of the enclosure or equipment rack is a U-shaped channel member having slots. The slots in the slotted channel member line up with openings in the enclosure or equipment rack. The slotted channel member is connected to the fiber optic cable raceway system. Thus, fiber optic cables can be routed from the enclosure or equipment rack through the openings, slots and slotted channel member to the fiber optic cable raceway system as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,287,428 to Shibata dated Feb. 15, 1994.
The slotted channel members have thin walls. The slots are cut in the thin walls of the slotted channel members and thus have thin, sharp edges. Fiber optic cables passing from the enclosure or equipment rack to the fiber optic cable raceway system through the slots in the slotted channel member rest on the thin, sharp edges of the slots. Resting the fiber optic cables on the thin, sharp edges of the slots may pull, bend, break or otherwise damage the fiber optic cables or may cause a loss of performance.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an inexpensive and easy to use apparatus and method to guide, protect and control the bend radius of fiber optic cables as they pass from an enclosure or equipment rack to a fiber optic cable raceway system through slots in a slotted channel member.